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What struck me the most when reading Whitman was...well, this is going to be hard to describe.

Have you ever experienced something, like a feeling, or a brief moment, or something that really had an important psychological effect on you...and then tried to write it down in the same kind of beautiful way that you experiencd it?

It never really comes across as satisfyingly similar to the sensation you experienced. Or at least, it doesn't when I write it.

Whitman used a lot of images and metaphors and scenarios that seemed basic, universal, almost generic in their quality. I get the sense that not all fo you felt this way about Whitman, and I didn't think he did this all the time, but there were definitely moments were I felt like he was creating cliche. Funny thing is, those cliches seemed to sum up things about life and the world in ways that I've always wanted to be able to sum things up, but never could. Whitman has a quality of being able to explain and descibe complex emotions in simple series of words that don't seem as though they should be sufficient to stir us.